


Nothing Secret Everything Sacred

by moonix



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew keeps bees and makes jam I don't make the rules, Babysitting, Domestic, Established Relationship, Fluff, Healing, M/M, Neil is a terrible influence, Summer, post-retirement, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 07:32:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17824553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonix/pseuds/moonix
Summary: Amalia Day visits Uncle Neil and Uncle Andrew. Mischief and shenanigans ensue.





	Nothing Secret Everything Sacred

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the song For Island Fires And Family by Dermot Kennedy. I was listening to it and got emotional and then this happened.

“I’ll pick her up Sunday night, and I don’t want to hear anything about how you’ve taught her to throw knives or anything again, okay?” Kevin says sternly, one hand on his daughter’s shoulder.

“Daaad,” she huffs dramatically. “You never let me have any fun!”

“No knife throwing, got it,” Neil smiles, shooting her a conspiratorial wink as she marches past him into the house. “How about darts? We can play darts, right?”

“Just don’t teach her how to cheat at it,” Kevin grumbles.

“Don’t be silly,” Neil says. “You can’t cheat at darts.”

“Bye, Amalia!” Kevin yells after her pointedly. She yells something back, already gobbled up by the little cottage that is actually quite big on the inside. Andrew and Amalia have decided to call it the Tardis, after spending a particularly rainy weekend catching up on Doctor Who together.

“I should get going,” Kevin sighs, gazing wistfully after his daughter who won’t miss him for a second.

“Yep,” Neil says, using his foot to push him off the threshold like he does with the cats when they try to trip him up. “Bye, loser.”

“Can you really not cheat at darts?” Amalia asks, sticking her head out of the kitchen, already a smear of jam on her chin. The house smells sticky sweet and overripe and several pots of new experimental jam are bubbling away on the hob—pineapple and mint, apricot with honey and lavender, spicy plum with ginger and chilli.

“Of course you can cheat at darts,” Neil scoffs. “If you know how.”

Amalia’s face splits into a wildflower grin. She’s a beanstalk like her dad, which means it probably won’t be long until she’s taller than Andrew and Neil, but for now she’s still got her little step stool for helping Andrew with the strawberries. Helping, in this context, meaning Andrew slices them and Amalia eats them.

“Can I feed the chickens?” she asks, poking her thumbnail around the little thatch of green on a large, heart-shaped berry. Her hair is less of a bird’s nest and more of a beehive today and she blows at the curls drifting in front of her face, exasperated.

“Tonight,” Neil promises. “Want me to braid your hair?”

“Yes!” Amalia shouts, jumping down from her stool. “I have rainbow scrunchies! Auntie Renee gave them to me! Do you want to see!”

She’s off before Neil can even reply, bouncing around until she finds her discarded backpack, which she proceeds to unpack all over the hallway in search of her scrunchies. Neil tries not to cringe—unpacking still makes him nervous, even after all these years. It’s Andrew who usually takes care of their luggage after a trip, because Neil would just leave it until the next time he goes away.

They set up camp on the porch swing. A light breeze dips in and out of the herb bed, carrying a savoury scent over to them. Bees and butterflies drift lazily amid the flowers and weeds that neither Neil nor Andrew can be bothered to pull up. It makes the bees happy, anyway.

Amalia’s hair is too big for a single braid, so Neil makes several smaller ones, using her scrunchies to tie them off. She chatters about school and ballet practice and Exy and the new library that her dad helped build in her neighbourhood. Neil feels drowsy in the heat. He doesn’t notice Andrew joining them until the swing dips and sways under his weight.

“Want me to do yours too?” Neil asks, holding up the last remaining scrunchie. Andrew has been growing out his hair on top and it’s long enough to tie up now. The sides are still fuzzy from his last undercut, but he hasn’t cleaned them up in a while because Neil loves to rub his fingers through the mess. It reminds him of wheat fields in the sun, of hot sand running through his hands.

“Mmh,” Andrew says, noncommittally, but he secretly loves having his hair played with so Neil takes it as a yes. Amalia putters off to say hello to the chickens and the bees and every tree in the garden, which she has lovingly named after the hobbits from Lord Of The Rings. Andrew scoots into her spot on the swing, his back to Neil, and pulls the simple black hairtie off that was holding the strands up in a bun while he was making jam.

Neil combs his fingers through them, gently untangling any knots he finds. There are some split ends that he could cut next time he cleans up Andrew’s undercut for him, but that can wait. He still has some stray hairpins from Amalia and he sticks them between his lips while he braids Andrew’s hair in a fishtail pattern, something he taught himself thanks to some YouTube videos and Andrew’s endless patience. (It helps that he has prime access to Andrew’s neck in this position and could reward him with little kisses, licks and nibbles every once in a while.)

“Do you need more strawberries?” Neil asks, tying off the braid and fixing a flyaway strand in place with a bright pink pin. “Amalia and I can go pick some more.”

“Mhh,” Andrew hums. He shivers when Neil brushes his fingertips over his exposed neck, playing with the downy little hairs there. They feel like peach fuzz, and Neil is infatuated with them.

Andrew stands up before they get too carried away and disappears inside again to check on his jam. The guinea pigs squeak excitedly as he passes their enclosure on the grass because they know Andrew usually feeds them treats, and Neil snickers.

“The pigs are getting fat, you know,” he calls after Andrew.

“Guinea pigs don’t get fat,” Andrew scoffs. “They poop all the time.”

Neil smothers a laugh and shamelessly enjoys the sight of Andrew’s shoulders stretching out an old t-shirt of Neil’s. Neither of them are wearing their armbands—Andrew hasn’t in a long time, and Neil only does on the really bad days. The scars are still there, but the years have worn away at the sharp edges of them, leaving behind something smooth and familiar like seaglass. Other marks have become more defining over time—the white band around Neil’s ring finger where his wedding ring sits, the small creases in the corners of his eyes when he smiles, the freckles he wears with pride every summer because every freckle marks a day spent in the sun, at peace.

He tucks his hands in the pockets of his dungarees and swings back and forth for a bit, watching as one of the cats leads Amalia on a merry chase around the garden. Andrew has started just naming them after fruit and this one, a sleek orange girl that likes running almost as much as Neil does, is Tangerine.

They go strawberry picking in a nearby field when Amalia tires of the game. Beth, the lady behind the till, just waves them through with a laugh and tells him she expects some of Andrew’s jam in return.

“And maybe some of that you-know-what,” she leans over the table to mutter conspiratorially. She means Andrew’s moonshine that he brews in the shed in-between beekeeping and jam making and writing Neil’s memoirs for him.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Neil assures her.

“How are the bees?” she asks, fanning herself with an old newspaper.

“Good,” Neil says. “Healthy and happy.”

“Oh, splendid. I was worried after what happened last year. Don’t think I’ve ever seen your man so solemn as when he lost that hive.”

“Yeah,” Neil cringes. Last year had not been a good time for Andrew. The depression had crept back in like mildew, subtle and insidious, rotting away unseen in tandem with the disease that had befallen one of his beehives.

They made it out though, and this year has been good to them, so Neil can’t complain.

He and Amalia have a competition over who can pick the most strawberries in an hour. Beth weighs their baskets for them when they return, sweaty and sun-flushed, their hands stained pink with berry juice and prickling with seeds. Neil wins by a narrow margin and Beth wryly suggests weighing Amalia too, to add onto her total since she ate half the berries she picked. Amalia giggles, and they take their baskets home, picking wildflowers on the way that Amalia sticks into the pockets of Neil’s dungarees for safekeeping.

When they get back the sun is already hanging low in the sky, a burst mirabelle plum sweltering on the ground. The clouds are blushing red and pink, swimming in juice, and the white noise of the crickets is pierced by the occasional contribution of their resident frog in his pond. Neil is still waiting for the day when one of the cats gets the drop on him, but so far he’s managed to elude them all.

“What do you want for your birthday this year?” Neil asks Amalia as they drop off their bounty with Andrew and make their way around the back of the house to feed the chickens.

“A drumkit!” she says. “And a space suit!”

“I think your parents might object to a drumkit,” Neil mutters, amused. “But I’ll see about the space suit. You still wanna become an astronaut?”

“Yep! I’ll be the first to play Exy in space!” Amalia giggles, skipping down the path on one leg. The chickens are around the back of the house where they basically have free reign, lording it over the cats. They’re all old ladies by now, unfazed by the world and content to sit in the shade and peck at the grass. They have several spotted brown and white ones and a fully white one that Amalia has named Hedwig, after Harry Potter’s owl. Hedwig trots over to her immediately, asking for head rubs and clucking softly, and Amalia coos over her.

“Martha and Greta have finally made up I think,” Neil says, squinting at the two chickens in question who are snuggled up side by side in a patch of clover. Usually the girls are quite peaceful, deferring to the old matriarch, Trudy. There’d been some sort of drama involving a tub of cottage cheese Neil had brought them as a treat last time Amalia was there though, and he’s glad to see they’ve sorted it out now.

“Do you think Andrew’s going to read us more Harry Potter after dinner?” Amalia asks, sitting cross-legged in the dirt with Hedwig in her lap. “I really want to know what happens with Sirius Black.”

“He might, if you ask him nicely,” Neil says.

“Can I climb this tree?” Amalia says, pointing at a wrinkled old apple tree whose branches are bent and trailing on the ground.

“Your dad said no more climbing trees,” Neil reminds her, trying to go for a stern tone of voice and failing. Last time he and Amalia had tried to build a tree house and had both managed to fall out of the tree. Neil had twisted his ankle and jarred his bad knee and Amalia had broken her arm, though she’d been ecstatic about getting a cast and had made Andrew and Neil sign it with their original Foxes jersey numbers. She’d been back on the court in no time, though Kevin, sober for nine years at that point, had needed a _very_ strong cup of tea after seeing his daughter with a cast on her left arm. Neil still feels a little bit bad about that, and Andrew had been deeply unimpressed with him too, so he thinks they’d better not climb any trees any time soon.

“My arm was _fine_ ,” Amalia pouts.

“It was broken,” Neil points out. “It was a little bit not fine.”

“Ugh, whatever,” Amalia says. She brightens up again when Andrew calls them for dinner and she realises that he’s made her current Doctor Who inspired favourite, fish fingers with custard. There’s also mashed potatoes for Neil, who categorically doesn’t eat custard unless it’s served with Andrew’s apple pie, and buttery peas that both Amalia and Neil only endure because they can throw them at each other when Andrew isn’t looking.

“I’m so full I could burst,” Amalia sighs, patting her stomach. “What’s for dessert?”

“Dessert?” Andrew asks innocently. “What dessert?”

Amalia grins and runs inside to check. Neil follows with the dishes and fills the sink with hot water, because they have a rule that whoever cooks doesn’t have to do the dishes after and Neil notoriously distrusts their ancient dishwasher. Amalia shrieks when she finds the chocolate cake in the pantry, piled high with whipped cream, strawberries and blueberries.

After dessert, Neil and Andrew share a glass of Andrew’s homemade whiskey while Amalia has a bath. The sky is soaking up indigo hues and the air is starting to cool down, so Neil brings the guinea pigs inside and tries to persuade the chickens to move into their coop with mixed success.

“Can we play firefighters again?” Amalia asks when she comes out of the bath, flapping about in Andrew’s fluffy bathrobe like an oversized bird. Andrew and Neil exchange a glance—setting fire to things in the backyard and letting Amalia put them out with an old fire extinguisher is another thing they are technically not supposed to do anymore. Neil doesn’t understand Kevin’s problem, because extinguishing fires is a valuable life skill, just like climbing trees, making jam, throwing knives and identifying edible mushrooms.

“Fine,” he concedes, “but don’t tell your dad.”

Andrew and Amalia set everything up outside and make sure no stray chicken can get herself accidentally barbecued. Neil hunts for things to burn, gathering a broken chair, some logs from the fireplace, and several more copies of the exclusive Riko Moriyama biography that Kathy Ferdinand released a year after his “tragic” death. In Neil’s opinion the only thing tragic about Riko’s death was that it didn’t last longer, so he makes a point of ridding the world of his ghost one book at a time.

He’s about to leave the garage where they store them, alongside Andrew’s motorcycle and Neil’s mountain bike, when he sees a scrap of dusty blue fabric poking out underneath the box. He pulls it out and finds his old duffel bag, the one he arrived in Palmetto with all those many years ago. It’s been a while since he last thought about it, so he swings it over his shoulder and takes it outside with him along with the rest.

Andrew shoots him a look when he sees it but doesn’t say anything. He sets up little piles and shows Amalia how to set them on fire, which, again, is a totally valuable life skill in Neil’s opinion. He stands back and watches them handle the fire extinguisher, always at a safe distance but close enough that the light of the flames dances over their faces in seething joy. Andrew glances up and catches his gaze before they reach the duffel bag. Neil nods, and it goes up in flames.

“Maybe I’ll become the first firefighter in space,” Amalia muses as they go back inside. Andrew makes hot chocolate and Neil and Amalia sprawl out over the couch, fighting briefly over the best blanket. Andrew grabs it off them and wraps Amalia like a burrito until she screams with laughter, and then he sinks into his armchair—the plaid monstrosity that Allison always visibly gags at but that Andrew refuses to get rid of—and picks up their current Harry Potter book.

Andrew’s voice is deep and steady, a little frayed and rough around the edges from years of smoking and silence. It never fails to carry Neil away like a leaf on a current. Sometimes he has to make a conscious effort to process the words instead of just listening to his voice, and he thinks if he had to choose a favourite sound in the world it would be a tie between Andrew’s voice and an Exy ball rebounding off the court walls.

God, he misses it. He still plays, of course, and watches, and he even used to co-coach with Kevin for a while before he decided he had to either quit or strangle the man. He knows he’s blessed for getting to do something he loves for so many years, for having something he never thought he could have. Giving that up had been one of the hardest things in the world.

But he’s here now, and he’s happy, and there’s still work to be done.

“Neil?”

A low murmur wakes him up. He’s on the couch, covered in blankets. It must be late; Amalia’s already in bed and Andrew looks half-asleep himself.

“Bed?” Neil mumbles, reaching for him. He cups his hand around Andrew’s face and Andrew covers it with his own, looking down at him in the low light.

“Bed,” he agrees. “It’s your turn to make breakfast tomorrow.”

“Hmmh,” Neil hums, stretching. “Alright. Do I get a kiss?”

“What are you, twelve?” Andrew scoffs, but leans down to kiss him all the same. “Bed,” he repeats after several failed attempts to remove himself from Neil’s mouth.

 _Yeah_ , Neil thinks. _Yes. This. It’s always yes with you._


End file.
